Are you ALSO an email addict?

I told my wife that I will be on leave for the whole of next week, half expecting that I will get a pat on my back for finally prioritising some time for my family and my children as the school holidays draws to a close.

She said, "Why do you want to do that for? being away from work for so long, it will surely mean that you will be checking your email all the time on your blackberry! What difference would that make?" What she said really struck me and set me thinking hard.

The good news is that today, I was conscious not to pull out my blackberry from my pocket. When the reflex came for me to see if the little red light was flickering (ie new emails have arrived), I consciously held back. My own assessment is that by broad measure I have been successful in resisting the urge to check email. Will it last?

The New York Times' "Lost in Email, Tech Firms face Self made Beast" article on 14 Jun 2008 brought the message home for me. Email has radically transformed the lives of many of us. Not only has our family lives been affected, it sometimes appears that it has become such an integrated part of our lives. I once had a series of email exchanges with a staff in a fast and furious pace, almost like a live conversation, only to find out that she has taken the day off and was in spa when that took place! According to the article, this relentless need to check email has also resulted in loss productivity through constant interuption. Think about it, it is true. Reflect on the last time that you spent an hour working on your PC, how many times did you click on the email tab to check if new emails have come in? ... and when there was a new email what did we do? we discontinued what we were working on for a while to reply to the email. I also recall times when my mind was so engrossed with reading and replying to the many emails that I delegated time for thinking as secondary. This is a serious consequence, but fortunately one where I could overcome these days by being much more disciplined about when I should spend time on email in office.

The article talks about "Email Backruptcy" - a state where on is so behind in catching up with email that it has become necessary to clean up all emails and start "life" anew. Another is "Email Apnea" - a condition where one misses a breath when too many email shows up. Sounds familiar?

We need to have a better handle of our lives and manage our electronic life! For me, I am determined that my vacation next week will be uninterupted by emails... well maybe only the important ones :-)